Quote Originally Posted by Eric C. View Post
By the time Russia was "defeated", every other country except Sweden had already lost the contest. So, it was a rivalry of the two at that point, and obviously, one or another was to have "defeated" the other one.
By the time the article was published every country except Sweden was already "defeated", so your point of a particular timeframe is somewhat illogical. It would be more logical if it would be several articles before and if Sweden and Russian would only be two countries in the finals. More problems come when you look at the quote from the article in my first post, the quote shows hostility to Polina Gagarina, also author somehow was able to squeeze "toxic international hypocrisy" into the songs contest.